The Blog

Medical Cannabis and Chronic Pain

Chronic Pain is insidious. Unlike the pain of a physical injury like a broken bone, chronic pain isn’t visible from the outside. Pain is a matrix that inhabits the physical, emotional, mental and spiritual planes of human experience. Popular thought speaks of a mind-body connection; chronic pain sufferers might argue, that there is no mind-body connection, rather, the mind and the body are the same darn thing, suffering slightly different versions the same darn pain. Many people that live with chronic pain are no strangers to a slew of other “greatest hits” on the pain pop charts: depression, anxiety, addiction and suicide chief among them.

Producer Kelsey Darragh has a condition called Trigeminal Neuralgia, which has been compared to searing, stabbing facial pain, or “a hot rod being stabbed in your eye while your face is being burnt off with chemicals.” It is considered the one of the world’s most painful disorders and is nicknamed the “suicide disease” because before there were viable treatment options, 1 in 3 people with this condition would take their own lives due to the pain. In this short video below Kelsey chronicles her doubts, fears and ultimately hope about medical cannabis as a treatment option for her chronic pain.

While we generally try to post more scientific pieces, we don’t ever want to lose sight of the power of the patient’s story. Anecdotal evidence is evidence. This video is honest, made with good humor, and gives a good look at what a new patient in a legal state might expect from their first experience with medical cannabis.